


The Hut on Fowl's Legs

by InkorStardust



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hunters International
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkorStardust/pseuds/InkorStardust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alina Kupinsyj trained for years to become part of the most prestigious set of hunters to grace Slavic society, whose only title remains the archaic Knights of the Day. Only three exist at once, the White, the Red, and the Black, and whether they fight Baba Yaga or serve her depends entirely on the storyteller.</p><p>She had only been a knight for three days when the angels fell.</p><p>Too quickly a system carefully managed for hundreds of years began to spin out of control.</p><p>All in all, it’s not been the easy start she’d hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There are many stories in the Carpathian Mountains, older than memory and older than the trees. They have lurked in the minds of the people for countless generations, myths and legends for the long dark winter nights.  
These are the fables as old as blood, and, like all old fables, are about blood.

And most of them are gathered here, in the stone walled library of the Vorozhka Cytadel. Down among the shelves a young woman is browsing, finger dragging along the shelf and keeping her place as the early morning sunlight fills up the room.  
This is the last moment of peace she’ll get for a long time.  
___  
“Wendigo… Witch…” The metal plaques announcing sections scrape under her fingernail as she moves, but there's no sign of the book she's looking for. What is meant to be a quiet curse bounces off the stone and into the upper levels, ending as a frustrated battle cry by the time it reaches the top floor. She glances around nervously for a few seconds before catching herself and stopping. 

She doesn't need to worry about insubordination now. She's an equal. She can swear in the library if she wants to.

When the thought crosses her mind it pulls a little smirk along with it, and in a speaking voice rather than a mutter she announces to the shelves. "Would a shitty computer be so hard to add to tell me if the fucking book I want is already being read by somebody else?"

The words echo back at her like a sympathetic crowd, and she continues, increasing her volume. "Just one machine that would save me seven fucking flights of stairs into the basement to look for a book- is that too much to ask of the universe?"

The echo crowd shouts back in agreement and she laughs. The complaint isn't new- she and the other trainees had grumbled about it for years, to no avail. But, she thinks, you can do something about it now. Ivan might have thought we needed the running around, but he's gone. You're the White Knight now- you can run a cable down and install a machine if you want.

Thinking about it clears up her irritation from her book being missing. So there's still seven flights back up to the main floor for nothing- could be worse.

She starts for the stairs, breathing in the mixture of old paper and pine wood shelves that almost makes the visit to the library worth it on its own. Jogging up the worn stone steps, listening to her echo crowd thundering away, she lets herself relax into a rhythmic pace she could keep up all day. 

It's one of the first things they'd been taught when they'd all arrived, her and the other hopefuls. How to hit that stride that eats up the distance without tiring you out. They'd voiced aloud their concerns that it had nothing to do with the mystic secrets to hunting they'd been promised, but Ivan's words had set them running and training. 

"You can outfight some monsters. You can outsmart others. But when you find something you can't beat, you'll thank God you can outrun them. Maybe there's shame in running, no glory in heading for the hills. But I knew a lot of hunters with glory, and they're all dead. And here's me, shameful and cowardly, with a bigger body count and a pulse. So get moving."

Thinking back, it seems odd how long it took them all to get it just right, especially with how easy it comes now.

Under her hand, the history of the Knights plays out, carved into the banister to preserve the story. She doesn’t give it much thought. She’s heard the story a hundred times before, of a great witch blessing three hunters to be the wardens against the dark. It’s never made much sense to her as anything more than a fairy tale. Why would a witch want hunters?  
None of the carvings had an answer for that.

She pulls out of her reverie to slow to a walk before she hits the door, stopping to tap her code into the lock keypad. At least outside of the library there's an illusion of modernity, the bars of signal coming back on her phone as she pulls it out. It's just passed one little white line when it rings in her hand. The name of the caller appears and she braces herself for what is bound to be either a sarcastic rant or a terrible joke.

"What is it Petro? Please don't tell me you need me to get something down from a high shelf again."

"I wish it was Alina. Come over to the communications room would you? There's something funny going on with the ley grid."

She frowns and keeps walking, turning at the end of the corridor to get out into the open air. The phone hisses as she pulls her hood up to protect her from the drizzle. "Funny like technical fault, or funny like the teenage coven blogs funny?" 

The man on the other end pauses before he answers, but the gap is enough of a sign that she's broken out into a jog before he can start. She doesn't bother to listen- if it had been technical he would have made a remark, and the other option is more important than whatever he'd have to say. Some of the pebbles from the path loosely clatter away and the morning dew splatters on the bottom of her jeans as she sprints down the hill to the only building in the entire complex not made of ancient stone.

It looks out of place, like a dark smooth businessman among a huddle of old academics, but trying to put that many electrical wires and radio cables into any of the others would have been impossible. It wouldn’t just have been the stone that was the problem- the wards would have rejected the signals. 

The communications room is Petro's private territory though, a jumble of electrics and wires no one else can untangle, and if something’s worrying enough to call anyone else in for help...

It doesn't bear with thinking about to be honest.

Her fingers stumble over the keypad to get in, but she manages to type her code in on the second go, cursing the length of the string of numbers all the while.

Petro's back is to her when she slips inside, but he turns sharply, his hair swinging over his eyes as he does, giving the impression of a worried sheepdog.

"You must've been just outside then? I called Leysa as well, but as you can see, you’ve beaten her. " 

Alina nods, only vaguely listening, but her eyes are drawn up to the glowing board dominating the left wall, its pulsing light the only brightness in the room. The entire thing is lit up like a string of Christmas lights, beating in time to some distant throb of power, only showing the intensity of the problem. The crisscrossing lines of power under the earth are unreliable most of the time, only worth paying attention to when there's a distant connection between two sources of power to be found. Sometimes enough energy moving between linked beings caused a line to glow, and some indicator was better than none. The only time they’d had any use for it was locating all the members of an online coven that had caused havoc for several hunters who didn’t know the link before they’d stepped in. 

Most of the time, Petro uses it as a pin board.

Petro follows her eyes and lets out an exasperated sound. "You can see why I called you. First I thought it was maybe a technical problem, but-"

He leans down to the bottom of the board and pulls on a trailing cable, ending up with the plug in his hand. "It's powering itself from whatever's going on. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it’s not anything good."

She's still at a loss for words, trying to think of any precedent that she's heard of. There's nothing she can think of that caused this many problems, even back in her third year of training when the entire Apocalypse was going on across the Atlantic and everything was a mess. "Maybe some of the gods are acting up again? Causing some kind of problem? "

Her companion shakes his head. "Wouldn't cause this. Not on a global scale. Only one set of morons could cause this kind of problem."

"The angels again?" A new voice interrupts them, and Alina turns her head to see Leysa filling the doorway, concern plastered across her face to match the wet strands of hair. The buttons on her shirt are fastened wrong, and her shoelaces are just tucked into her boots, but she manages to look imposing anyway. She strides past the other equipment and stops just in front of the board, staring at it like it would stop if she could glare at it enough. "I can only assume it has to be them. None of the other pantheons have this kind of power.”

Petro shrugs lightly. "Maybe. But unless the entire planet is about to explode, and Hell itself going to appear under out feet, I don't know what. It wasn't even this crazy when they let Satan run around, and he made half my equipment useless for months."

The silence that stretches between the three of them in anything but comfortable. There shouldn't be problems like this, not when things were running fairly smoothly. There's no good that can come of it. After a minute that feels like an hour, Petro posits another suggestion. "We're not going to get answers from this thing. I say we contact some of the hunters on the ground and see if they know. Maybe it is an error that we just can't see."

Alina can only hope it's that simple, but her gut in enflamed with worry. They might be cut off from the cities and the people most of the time but there should be some sign on any of the other machines if it was a magical error. 

Almost in sync with her thoughts, a screeching wail starts up behind them, and Leysa winces visibly. "Petro, get that thing to shut up." 

He scuttles across the room as quickly as he can, clutching his own ears against the noise. The small room only serves to make it louder, and as he fumbles with the little box his hands barely muffle the sound. After a brief struggle he manages to get it to stop, but his face is almost waxen with concern and confusion. 

Alina feels her gut feeling lash out in an ‘I knew it’ way and raises a worried eyebrow. "Petro... what does that unholy noise mean?"

An odd look passes across his face, almost humour. "Well, that’s the thing..." A nervous chuckle punctuates his explanation. "It's not meant to do anything. Or, anything useful. I mean, it's been here longer than I have. The Red before me didn't know either, just said it was a warning alarm for something. Ha... A 'shit's going down noise', she called it."

Leysa relaxes, unimpressed by the box. "We were already aware of that. Have you seen this board? Just call up any of the contacts we have and figure out that's going on."

A sharp salute in full sarcasm follows her command, but Petro jumps to it anyway, sliding back across the room on his shoeless feet and throwing himself into his desk chair. The keys of his customised switchboard flick under his quick fingers, and he's rattling off questions at a hundred words a minute before Alina and Leysa have reached the door. Outside, Leysa stops her for a moment. For the first time, she notices how tired her superior looks.

"I want you to go down to the library and see if they have anything on huge power fallouts. This might be too old for Petro to know about with his computers, but we can hope it's something we can deal with."

Alina smiles warmly, trying to bring something hopeful back to the conversation. "We've dealt with worse before, whatever it is. I mean, maybe it wasn’t up close and personal, but we lived through the end of days, didn't we? What could possibly be worse?"

Leysa attempts to return the smile, but her eyes still remain clouded over with unease. "That's what I'm worried about."

The attempt at levity obviously a failure, Alina nods a parting gesture before jogging back up the hill to the library. Her previous grievance about no computer to log the books comes back to her, and in full force. She pauses to call back a question for here to start looking, but Leysa is already disappearing into one of the other buildings, just the end of her hair slipping through the doorway. 

The library welcomes Alina back with a mocking air, the stairs down waiting for another arduous journey. It's only a couple of floors this time at least, she thinks, to find books on the ley lines, and as quickly as she can she hurries down to begin her search.

____

"No, no, I'm not asking if you've done anything, I'm asking if you've heard anything."

Petro digs his short fingernails into the palm of his free hand and shakes his head as he terminates the call mid-sentence. Most of them time he can put up with or work around hunters obtuse reaction to his calls, but he doesn't have time for games of suspicion. He's onto the next number in a second, but upon hearing the start of a voicemail terminates that too. "Is no-one going to be any use today? The planet’s going to burst or the sky’s going to fall and I’ll be sitting here waiting for a decent answer.”

On a hunch, and because his home operatives seem to be a complete waste of time this morning, he flicks up his sole contact across in the UK. He doesn't really like international questions, but if the grid says it's affecting them too, it’s worth a shot.

"Hello?"

He's almost surprised someone's agreed to take his call, and he nearly asks in Ukrainian before remembering himself and changing to English mid-sentence. "Allo, dobrogo ranku- Sorry. Morning. I was wondering- are you getting any... strange readings? Power surges? Anything not normal?" 

"We're getting something- definitely something's going on, but I'm in the dark as much as you are I'm afraid. I’m just up and I’m trying to decipher the messages a few people have left me. Wish I could help. If you find out, let me know?"

"Sure, sure."

He doesn't bother with goodbyes. Not his style anyway. Glancing up at the hideously cheery cartoon character clock on the wall, a splash of colour in an otherwise dark room, he sighs and crosses his fingers as he pushes the switch for his American line. It's late, but hunter’s hours are weird at best. If he's lucky someone will bother to pick up.

"What?"

Her tone is sharp, and Petro rolls his eyes. Americans. "Is there anything weird where you are and do you know wha-"

"You're damn right there is. Falling stars. Never seen this many is my entire life. It's like the entire sky is coming down."

This sounds more like what he wants to hear, and he leans before forward on his desk, desperate for the information. "Do you know why?"

His contact coughs a little too sharply to be real, but she recovers quickly. "I... I don't. But I can tell you this much- I was on the trail of some demon, and this thing sees the stars and laughs like he's won the lottery. Don't bode well if you ask me. If I can catch the fucker I'll try and get it out of him."

Petro leans back into his chair, but admits, privately, this is better than he'd expected in terms of getting an answer. What the answer is, that’s perhaps not so good. "Thanks.”

Another abrupt goodbye. If she’s working, no need to keep trying to disturb her. He runs a hand through his hair, pushing his fringe away from his face before rubbing his eyes. He knows what he signed on for, and it's shit like this, but very occasionally he wonders if he should have become a vet like his father.

Ah, his thoughts reply as he turns to open another call with someone closer to home who might own a telescope, but where's the job satisfaction in that?

___

Leysa chews her lower lip slowly, staring into the mirror above the mantel. She's in the role of leader here, the Black above the Red and White, and she's never had a problem with it before. 

But in a moment of longing for the past, she misses Ivan terribly. The previous White Knight was her subordinate, true, but he'd been here longer than she had, and it was nice to have that security that someone else might be there to step in if she faltered. Not that she dislikes Alina, who’s good at the work, no argument there, but she isn't the same comfort. 

The moment passes, and she straightens her back. Whether she’d like the security or not, she doesn't have it, so she has to get herself in gear. 

The reflection in the mirror looks like a leader, so she has to act like one the best she can. There's no complaining for leaders. Just getting things done.

With that reassurance, she moves into her personal store room, picking up a shotgun from the wall. The table behind her acts as a handy surface to lay it on as she begins to take it apart and reassemble it. It's an action she's done a thousand times, maybe more, and it reaffirms that she can deal with something big. She knows what she's doing. She can handle this.

Alina was right, after all. They had survived the apocalypse, even if it hadn’t come to their doorstep.

Of course they'd had the trainees and hopefuls for the position of White Knight around then. And Ivan, with his solid, dependable, fuck the world attitude. And hadn't the hunters seemed that much more willing to co-operate, even a few years ago? Her hands falter around the fore end before it slides into place as it should, bringing the weapon back to a whole. 

“There's nothing to be afraid of,” she mutters under her breath. "The monsters are afraid of us, not the other way around. We don't have to give in to any fear about them."

It should be incredibly reassuring, but it falls flat and sounds false and hollow to her ears.

____

The books in the library aren't being particularly helpful. Most of the facts are things that Alina already knows about ley lines, the way they run under the earth, the way they can carry power, but nothing about why every single one would manage to be thrumming with the same power at once.

She shoves a book thicker than a book has any right to be back onto the shelf and looks around in case she’s missed one. There's only one or two books on the subject, under either 'ley' or 'lines'. There's no sign of anything else useful and she's about to give up and tell Leysa it's a lost cause when a thin, off white book catches her. Under duress, she'd swear it hadn't been there a moment ago, but that's the way with so many things. If it's useful, she can forgive the appearance.

It's not particularly long at all, pages wafer thin and brown with age, and she can't help but wonder where they picked this one up from.

Some of the tomes have been in the library so long no one is sure or their origin, some were written by previous Knights, and the majority have come from extensive searching at auctions and specialist events. This doesn't look like it's been bought, or written by anyone from their community. It doesn't even call them ley lines- the author seems determined to refer to them as the world's magical channels.

It does, however, have something that might be relevant. Alina clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she rifles through and stops on a page marked 'overflow'. 

“When the channels are overflowing with an excess of power, it is far from a fortuitous sign – well, nice to know were right about that- and it is a catastrophe with something inhuman as the only cause. Okay... " 

The author rambles for another half a page before he reaches the point he wants to make. "The only things I have found that can achieve that vast a reach are those beings above us, in some way or form, who can stretch their arms across countries and continents. Well, shit.”

It's the only thing vaguely helpful in the few books she has, and it slips into the pocket of her hoodie easily enough. 

She’s moving for the stairs when something out of the long windows catches her eye. Across the hills, but before the next peak can block out of the view, there's a light streaking across the sky. 

Alina hasn’t believed in coincidences in a long time. 

Before the light can hit the ground she’s sprinted out of the library, getting onto the hill just in time to see it disappear into a clump of forest a few miles away. She wishes she could see better, but between the morning mist, the rain and the heavy clouds, there's no chance she'll get a good fix on it. If it were any other circumstances she'd head off down the hill with a dog and a gun without pausing for thought, but the grid going haywire is slightly more important than her curiosity. Besides, Leysa asked for an answer, and she can’t deny her boss that.

Petro appears behind her and taps her on the shoulder, looking frazzled as he holds up a print out of an email that he hastily tucks back inside his t-shirt before it can get too wet. "I think I might have it. You got anything from the history books?"

His tone belies his little belief in the argument of books over modern technology, and just to drown his smugness she pulls the thin book from her pocket. "Gods or angels doing something unsavoury. You agree? Or has the internet turned up an answer involving aliens and sentient machines?"

It's his turn to roll his eyes and cross his arms, and she can't help but smile as they head along one of the paths. When she knocks on Leysa’s door, she tries to stifle her triumphant grin. 

Leysa opens the door, looking a little neater than she did upon her arrival in the communications room. The buttons on her shirt are lined up at least, and her long dark hair is pulled back. "Results?"

Before Alina can answer, Petro speaks over her, pulling the paper from his t-shirt like a magician with a trick. He even twists his wrists in a theatrical flourish. "From what I can tell, and I can tell a lot, we're dealing with a celestial fallout here. A fight upstairs or something- not that unusual these days. It’s happening to a lot of people, so maybe these factions we’ve heard rumours about have finally got a winner.”

Leysa turns her attention to Alina for her answer, and sheepishly she can only give agreement. "The books say the same. It has to be gods or angels having some big argument. Maybe both."

The praising look goes to Petro, and feeling her inner child wanting to step up to Petro's usual adolescent behaviour, she quickly continues her point. "There was a falling star- across the valley. Hit one of the woods and vanished, but there's no smoke or explosions. Just this bright disappearing light."

Suddenly the attention is on her, and Leysa's expression makes their petty contest seem just that. "Which direction? We can’t let anything like this affect any of the villages.”

Alina blinks and hesitates for only a moment before opening the door and pointing out across the distance. "By the river's bend, probably about a mile east of the pass to the mountain road.”

The older woman reaches past her for a heavy jacket and pulls it on as she grabs her shotgun from across the room. Disappearing into her back room she brandishes another one which gets tossed to Petro unceremoniously. “Grab a jacket- you’re coming with me to deal with this.”

“Why can’t Alina be your backup? I’m sure she’d enjoy tramping through muddy fields way more than me.” He says it with a grin, but he’s anything but joking, and Leysa frogmarches him out of the door into the rain for incentive to get his coat. “Because she’s going to check our god and angel warding and make sure it’s actually working, that’s why.

Besides,” she says, flashing Alina a grin at his expense, “When was the last time you even stirred from behind your desk? Move out.”

Alina slips out behind her, letting the door close and lock automatically as she goes. The rain seems determined to get heavier with no sign of stopping, and she can’t say she envies Petro at all. The valley might be one of her favourite places, but there was a line that turned it from a challenge to just frustrating, and boot swallowing mud and overflowing banks were that line.

Warding was an easy job in comparison, though remembering how every sigil twisted and where they were all located wasn’t by any means simple. A sigh escapes her lips and she lets her feet take her down the hill and back to the communications unit. 

It has the least wards to deal with, since most clashed with too much electricity and technology. In fact, as she steps inside she remembers there’s only a few all-purpose evil warding symbols that should keep out most nasties, and one new one for angels they’d only added during the apocalypse fiasco. 

Considering how many are on the outer walls of the fortress, she doesn’t see much point on the internal ones at all. But checking the internal ones means staying out of the wet and the wind, so she doesn’t let it bother her too much.

The one above the door is whole, but as she climbs under the switchboard she can see a gap in the celestial one that shouldn’t be there, probably rubbed off by Petro kicking the wall so he can swing in his chair as he works.

Pulling herself back out, she tries to find a marker to fill the gap again and wonders how anyone can find anything in among the nests of cables. There’s nothing in the usual places- in mugs or lined up for easy use- but after a good minute or so she spots one tucked behind a monitor, in a completely useless place.

Just as her hand closes around it, the switchboard lights up, a small bulb blinking in a call with a little trumpeting cry. The headset is too awkward to try putting on, so she lines it up as best she can and presses what looks like the right button to answer.

“Allo?”

“This is one of Petro’s guys, right?”

Alina clicks her tongue and answers slowly, hoping she’s understandable. “Yes, I work with Petro. He’s not here.”

“This is pretty important, so get this down- the thing he called about? Lights in the sky, stuff going haywire?”

“Yes?” She replies, not even bothering to look for paper to write it down on.

“I caught that demon, and if he’s right, I don’t know what we’re going to fucking do.”

The anxious tone of the American woman’s voice doesn’t make her feel much better, but the nervous pause only makes it worse. “…And he said?”

“He said… He said it meant Heaven was empty. He said that every one of those winged deadbeats has come hurtling outta the sky at a hundred miles an hour. Real nasty shit.”

Her nerves have her speaking at such a speed that Alina only manages to pick out the occasional word, and her patience snaps. “Slow down. What’s happening?”

There’s another long pause before the caller takes a deep breath and answers.

“The angels are falling.”


	2. Chapter 2

It takes Alina a good few seconds to take in the new information, her face screwing up in confusion. “The angels are what?”

“Falling. Like, if you fall as Lucifer fell? Falling out the sky like planes on fire?”

“Shit.” The realisation of what that means takes another moment to hit her, but when it does the colour drains from her face. “Shit, I have to go, right now.”  
She’s not even sure if she said that in English, but the worry is shoved to the back of her mind by the much bigger issue. The headset is abandoned on the desk as she sprints for the door and out into the rain. The mud slides under her feet, splattering up her legs as she attempts to make it to the gate as fast as she can.

It’s only as the wrought iron arch of the main gate is above her that she stops. If she’s very quick, she should be able to get to Leysa and Petro to at least be backup for what they’re bound to find. It’s the demon warding sigil carved into the stone wall that gives her second thoughts. They’ve not had to deal with angels anywhere near their base in years, and she knows there’s bound to be a weak point somewhere. 

She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth in indecision. Safe base, or safe friends?

It’s not really a choice at all.

The gate opens and closes with well-oiled ease, slamming shut firmly behind her. The road provides a decent grip for her to get going before she veers off, trying to figure the fastest way between her and the spot the light fell to.

If she’s very lucky, neither of her companions will have remembered the shortest route. The thought gives her a little comfort- Petro rarely strays from the base or from wherever he sets up his equipment when they travel, so the odds of him doing anything but the easiest way are slim.  
Leysa is more of a wild card though. She doesn’t take the shifts that involve wandering the hills, or she hasn’t since Ivan narrowed down his replacement pool to just Alina at the very least. But she’s been surprised by her superior’s memory before.

It’s the only hope she has to cling to, feeble as it is, so she lets it sit in her stomach, giving her energy to keep running.

Two miles has never felt like such a huge distance before, seeming like a marathon more than anything else. The sheep in one of the fields bleat worriedly as she hurtles past, and if she hadn’t already known something wasn’t right, they’d have been all the sign she needed. A worn wooden fence nearly gives way under her as she vaults it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, in the part too far gone to panic, she makes a note to get it fixed before something escapes and runs amok. 

A dirt road heading for the treeline is over the next hill. In all honesty it’s more a wide path, but it’s less slippery than the wet grass underfoot and Alina sends a thank you to any deity willing to pick it up. 

Under the thick cover of the trees the ground is a little less muddy, and she can get a grip on the carpet of roots instead. Her good fortune makes her instantly suspicious, and she files away another note to herself to check if she’s being buttered up by a god or spirit with something planned. 

Heading for the river, she wonders if she’ll ever be not suspicious of anything someday. The sound of running water is a relief, the clichéd music to her ears, and she takes a moment to look around to check her bearings. The entire wood is peaceful, incredibly quiet, and the summer flowers are blooming in full force. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong at all.

She’s half way to the crossing point on the river when she realises why that’s not a good sign. 

It’s Semik, Green Week, and the Rusalki should be out in the trees, giggling and combing their hair. The water spirits are always causing problems at the best of times, and with their power that much greater they should be swinging from the branches and trying to find people to drown.

There isn’t a single one in sight.

It’s not a case of shyness- she’s met them before, on several occasions. Ivan had considered them more a nuisance than a threat, since they could be driven off by so many things. A bit of wormwood or a few verses of the right song and they’d be off. So he’d sent his trainees down to chase them off when they were getting rowdy. 

Peace when there should be chaos is a terrible thing.

She doubles her pace, and the wood of the thing bridge over the water sounds like thunder under her feet. The light had crashed right onto the bend of the river, and she knows it’s just up the hill from where she is now.

At the top she pauses, and takes in the scene with mild confusion.

Leysa and Petro are there, examining a torn up trail of earth, looking no worse for wear than normal.

Alina feels something that might almost be disappointment sink in her chest. Not that she’s not pleased they’re okay, but considering she’s standing there, covered in mud and panting, it seems a bit like overkill. 

Slowly she makes her way over to them, catching her breath as she walks. It’s Petro that notices her first.

 

“Alina! What’re you doing out here? Warding wasn’t that boring, was it?”

“You got a call I thought was important.” She smiles, probably looking slightly mad, but she can’t stop herself. “The lights from the sky- they’re everywhere. And they’re angels. Fallen angels.”

Petro’s eyebrows shoot towards his hairline, and Leysa straightens up from her crouch. “Whoever landed here is gone, if they were corporeal at all. When we got here, it was empty, wasn’t it Petro?”

 

He nods in confirmation, shoving his hands in his pockets. “My first being dragged out into the wilderness in months and it’s a no-show. Huge let-down really. I should sue for wrongful job description.”

Alina smirks at him. “I’m sure that’ll go well. Do it. We can use you as an example to the next Red Knight.”

He feigns horror at the thought and jumps over the gash in the ground to join her. “I’ll let it slide this once then. Come on, I’ve got calls to make.”

They turn to go back down the hill, Petro letting her lead him in whichever route she thinks is best. Before they begin their descent she turns back to Leysa. “Are you coming with us?”

Their boss nods firmly, giving the trail one last glance.  
Alina and Petro slip down the hill and she follows them, catching up by the time they reach the bridge.

___  
"Did you run straight here as soon as you heard?" Leysa tilts her head questioningly at her and Alina nods a little sheepishly.  
"I was worried you'd run into something you'd need a hand for. I got the call before I got a chance to finish the task you set me, sorry. I'll do them as soon as we get back. I figured prevention of the problem was better than trying to defend against it."

"No, that's the best way to proceed in that situation. I'm pleased you did it, don't worry. Ill finish the warding when we get back."

Alina smiles broadly. "Thank you. I'll get to work on checking with the locals then."

Petro shakes his head. "I'm guessing I'm not going to get a congrats for nothing then? Since we're handing them out it only seems fair."

Alina swats the back of his head playfully and he shoots her a nasty look, the journey back having a lot in common with the backseat of a family toad trip.

___

The gates swing open easily as they all get back inside and Petro takes a look down at himself. "Alright, can I at least change before I knuckle down to work? It's nothing that can't wait ten minutes. Maybe a shower too?"

Leysa looks over her own clothes and Alina's too and grimaces. "That seems sensible for the lot of us. Unless you want to go out to the villages now Alina?"

"I'll get a back of some things I might need first. Preparation and all that. I think we still have some holy oil left somewhere. I promise I won't use it unless it's an emergency. But a couple of cans of paint to ward up the locals homes is a necessary one right?"

Leysa gives her a dismissal and turns for her quarters, picking at the mud on her shirt. Alina gives Petro one last friendly swipe before heading to the storage bunker. Well, one of. Weapons and arsenal type items have their own secure system on a different set-up than the rest of the buildings. But paint is along the same lines as wood or nails- general supplies. It still has a code of course, but that's more for the look than any chance of theft.  
The paint is organised by colour, another of Leysa's calming habits, and she takes a moment to pick out a colour. Not that a particular colour has any special properties over any other colour, but there's choice, and she might as well make the wards look smart. Red and black seem like the best choices- neither will fade too quickly, and they stand out well enough they can be touched up by the inhabitants as well.

She tugs an old backpack from one of the other shelves and drops the paint inside, taking a few cans of each for good measure. The wood across the room shifts suddenly, and Alina spins on her heels, on alert.

A long iron file is on one of the shelves to her left, and a semi-decent weapon out of the few things she has. She brandishes it like a short sword as she steps over and kicks the wood out of the way viciously. One of the base's cats stares back at her with the usual feline disgust and she shakes her head at her foolishness. There's nothing deadly about a cat, unless one of the scratches gets infected.  
It shoots off through the open door and she goes back to her bag. A quick glance around as a last check for anything else useful doesn't give anything to be discovered, and she zips up and slips back out, making sure the door is firmly closed to stop another cat getting in.

The communications unit is her last stop again, and once a she's glad Petro has gone to clean up so she can use his printer in peace. The locals have gotten quite good at warding off nasty spirits and demons under their careful eye, but they've never bothered to hand out angel warding sigils before. A couple of copies to go around should keep everything running that bit more smoothly.

They don't have many that work on angels, most of them picked up by hunters who'd found them on buildings left behind by those few other hunters in the know. They might not all be 100% effective for all they know, but they've never been invaded by angels yet, so they were probably better than nothing.

She leans over the computer, bringing up the files without bothering to change to her own log in. The printer whirrs happily and begins to vomit up the symbols, seven or eight copies of each.  
Another thing to slip into her bag of miscellaneous crap.

At a much calmer pace than last time she strolls out of the main gate, following the road instead of turning off to cross the fields. It's not long before he steady walk takes her to the outskirts of the nearest village, though the word is a little strong for the small collection of houses. One of the elderly ladies gives her a friendly wave as she walks down the village's main, and only, street.  
Methodically she begins at the top right, knocking on the door briskly. A little boy opens it and stares up at her.  
"Hey there. Is one of your parents in? Got to do a little job for them."

He inserts his thumb into his mouth and continues staring at her, which grates on her patience, but his mother appears behind him and scoops him up shortly. "Oh, hello! I didn't know we were having one of your lot visiting. I don't have anything ready for you-"

"Not to worry." Alina reaches into her bag, swinging it of her shoulder to reach the zip. "I'm just doing a service. We're mildly concerned about possible, uh, monster problems. Just want to put up one of those somewhere out of the way to keep you safe." The symbol on the paper twists in the wind, and the woman gestures her inside. 

"Of course! We've got a spot just by the back door. What kind of trouble are you worried about? It's not the Rusalki is it?"

"No no, they're not a problem. It's something a little more... difficult to explain. But this should keep them out anyway."  
Alina doesn't bother to try and explain the angel problem. As willing to accept the Knights as these people are, they’re very traditional. It helps in certain cases, with plenty of them already believing the stories hunters have to know as fact, but trying to describe an angel as a bad guy wouldn’t go down as well. In their heads, angels have halos and bright wings and a beautiful harp and would only strive to protect humanity and work for God.  
The thought makes her laugh, and she covers it with a cough, pulling one of the little mouth masks from her bag. "I'll only be five minutes."

She finds a spot under the windowsill and clears a bit of space to get to work, painting the lines carefully and precisely to make sure. Once she's finishes the paint goes back in her back, and she hands the woman a copy of the symbol before she leaves. "As usual, if it gets worn away or scraped or something, just copy that out. Shouldn’t matter where you put this one, as long as it's on the building itself."

The other houses go much the same, letting her in to do her work with a smile and quiet fascination. The last house on the end forces her to stay for a drink, and a few biscuits, freshly baked that morning, apparently. She takes it in good humour and lets the old couple fuss over her for a little while. She knows most of the hunters on the ground consider hunting a thankless job, with no respect and no gratitude, and she's glad she gets some recognition really.  
It's a personal sort of job satisfaction that makes it worthwhile, really. Knowing these people are okay because of you, and that they know that only makes it better.

The few times they've had hunters come up to the base themselves, they’ve had a chance to walk through the area and soak up the gratitude from the people. They always seem to go away that much happier than when they came.

She dumps her bag and the leftover paints back in the storage room before taking a walk back to her own quarters, right on the end of the little set. Leysa's is on the west side, where the sun is last, and Petro's is in the middle where the sun sits at noon. Alina's is the eastern one, first hit by the rays of the sun in the morning.  
It's all symbolic of course, but she does have suspicions about the fact Leysa gets the nicest area to sit out in in the summer evenings, and that she's the boss. An abuse of power, she thinks to herself jokingly. 

In side she throws off her jumper and drops it into the washing basket, trying to judge when she'll need to do another washing. A few days yet, she figures, since she's got enough clothes to last her till then. The jeans are unceremoniously dumped too, and hit the floor with a muddy squelch. She darts into the bathroom to turn on the shower and let the water heat up in the ancient pipes. They groan as the water begins to pump through, and it gives her time to finish undressing before the water temperature is anything close to bearable. 

In the shower she gives her hair the first rinse through, looking for traces of mud tangled in there. Washing it is cathartic, and it gives her time to think.

The angel that fell is a problem to be dealt with. She has no idea if it has a body or not, but it would find one if it didn’t, so it'll be able to cause havoc either way. They have so little on angels she has no idea what falling entails. Do they still have powers?

The reports on the matter are so conflicted, and she's still not quite ready to take the fact their best source of info on the bastards was a set of pulp horror novels from America. Prophets or whatever, it still sounds ridiculous. But if the angel is powerless, there's nothing to worry about really.

Best to assume full powers of destruction, healing, and possibly flight. When Satan had done his kick up he'd certainly had power of some kind, and he was the biggest faller in the book.

Okay, so one powered up angel running around. Villagers were safe enough indoors, but not much else could be one on that front. What would they want?  
Power? Back upstairs? 

What would you do, she thinks to herself, trying to work it out. Well, I'd ... Find a body if I didn't have one. Get myself safe and make sure I was in good shape for whatever could happen next. And then... Hm.

Angels don't think like people though- they have straight and narrow desires for things. A treacherous voice crosses her mind and asks "Alright, what would Leysa do then?"

It's not a nice comment on her boss, but it is more apt. Leysa had been something in the army once, and that's what angels were, right? Soldiers.

She'd... Rest up, heal, prepare, and go after whoever hurt her. Or go after the position of power, which could be one and the same.

Not a particularly appealing sounding situation. Regardless of what happens, they probably have a day or two to get themselves organised, which is thankful. She finishes up with her shower, still pondering the specifics. The mirror lets her see the edge of one of her tattoos, the one they'd found that warded against demons, and she can't help but wonder if there's a version for angels somewhere.  
It's worth looking in the library for. There hadn't been as much call for it back when they were having their angel worrying period, since it was a case of keeping them away, not out of the body. She's heard they need to ask, but she has no idea how fuzzy the lines are when it comes to it. Is forced consent applicable? Definitely a research topic.  
As she's thinking about tattoos she focuses on the one over her heart, still fairly fresh in comparison to the others. 

When she'd been named Ivan's successor they'd gotten it branded on her skin what she was devoting her life to. Baba Yaga's symbol rests there with the open sun rising over the horizon above it. It's nearly identical to Petro's and Leysa's, apart from the positioning of the sun. Petro's was high in the sky, and Leysa’s was missing entirely, replaced by the moon.  
More pomp and circumstance- no defensive properties at all. But Ivan had told her that when it came to the crunch she'd be happy to have it, and it looks attractive enough for her to go along with it. 

She finishes getting dressed leisurely, putting on something warm to go and browse the library in. The stone walls in the basement levels suck all of the heat out of the place and whoever is trying to find things.

___

Petro spins in his chair, pushing himself off against the wall to get the motion going, nodding along to the voice in his headset.  
"That's what I got told by an American. Of course it happened in America."

The hunter on the other end raises their voice in anger and concern and Petro winces at the increase in volume. "Look, we can't do that much about it. If we're lucky they'll pick themselves up from their fall and head back to the US to do whatever it is they do over there. We don't have anything they want. "

There's more concerned shouting from the other end and he rolls his eyes. "Or we don't have anything as attractive as they do."

It doesn't seem to calm down his contact much and he sighs huffily, staring up at the ceiling as he completes another lazy spin. "Just ward yourself up, be careful, and try not to provoke any you find. No feathers jokes, no comments about 'did did it hurt when you fell from heaven', nothing like that. Don't say you wouldn't, because we all would if we thought we could get away with it."

He picks up a pen from his desk and chews on the end as he listens. "Why do you think they keep me on computer and comms work? If I came face to face with a monster I'd be so sarcastic it would just eat me out of spite."

That gets a better reaction and he smiles, like light breaking through the clouds. "There we go. Pass along the message best you can to be on your toes. I'm going to see where the biggest concentration fell here, but for now you can assume you're in the hot zone. And you didn't even have that many. "

They've finally calmed down, and he hangs up and leans forward, feet thumping back to the ground. It's making the best of a bad situation really, but he's not worried. All the big problems to do with Heaven have passed them by. The biggest problems always focus on America as far as he can tell, and he's not complaining about it. They've got their fair share of demons and monsters and gods in Europe without having to deal with the fallout from some celestial nukes. Plus that whole leviathan thing went down in an America only bubble, or so it seemed. 

It's almost rude how they avoid them. The thought makes him chuckle but he thanks his lucky stars they have done so. He has no interest in dealing with anything that terrifyingly hopeless seeming.  
His fingers trail over to his keyboard without his conscious input, and curiously he begins a search through his documents again.

The file image is a stylised illustration of two men with ridiculous poses and too macho imagery and he clicks it as he's done dozens of times before. The file opens with a quiet beep of confirmation and a wall of text appears in English, and followed a second later by another wall in Ukrainian. He scrolls to where he was last time and scans the lines, trying to discover something new in words he knows almost by heart. Something that fits with how he thinks of hunting.

The monster snarls and snaps and the hero takes it down with a clean two handed beheading, like an action hero. It's all so primal.  
And very not his position.  
He can picture Leysa doing it without a second thought, and Alina doing it if it was the best course of action, but it just doesn't seem much like him, and yet he's supposedly part of the same wider picture and goal. 

Purple prose aside, the main protagonist always seems to be in that position of brawn and it's such a juxtaposition that he can never wrap his head around it.  
He closes the file with a violent click and opens his emails instead, clicking until he's in a specific subfolder that he knows will reassure him. 

_It's been so long since I've seen you sweetheart. I know your work keeps you so busy that it's hard to meet up- I'm in the same boat- but we need to try. For your birthday, okay? It's only a month away, but it's still way too long. You could come down to me, or I could travel up to you. I could use a little break and a place to switch off. Always feel safe when I'm in that place._  
 _Promise me we'll do it okay?_  
 _Love, Hanna_

He feels that much better looking at it, and a quick glance to his calendar helps too. Only three weeks before he reaches his black circles date, and gets a little respite from everything.  
Obviously he's still working, but having his girlfriend around makes it seem much more fun. He can shows off all his new equipment and toys that she doesn't have on the ground, and she'll act jealous of his set up when they both know she loves the footwork and running around that hunters get. He sighs contently and spins in his chair again, twirling a few times aimlessly before topping in front of his switchboard again. More calls to make before he can relax about that.

It doesn't stop the smile from staying on his face.  
__

The section on angels is both the biggest and most useless sections of the library, Alina decides.

There's stacks of books about angels, about Enochian, about rituals and Abrahamic beliefs. But since no one had had much contact with angels there was no way to sort the truth from the fiction, or the fact from the bullshit. She'd made a start on it once, but gotten distracted by... What was it? Ah- the werewolf terrorising sheep on the other side of the mountain. That had been a lot of running around and she'd been too tired to bother working on organisation then.  
She kind of wishes she had now.

There's nothing particularly on any defensive motions to make against angels. Much like the villagers, the books had a vision of angels that was well, angelic.  
The best she can do is keep sorting, just to be methodical, but there's no real hope in her mind that she'll find anything useful.

She pulls three more thick tomes from the shelf and settles down on the floor to read cross-legged, leaning against the shelves.

____

Breakfast the next morning is an odd affair. There's no sense of depression or deep worry from any of them, but the jokes and the timing seems just a little off, like their harmony is out of balance. The food isn't one of the problems, not especially wonderful, but about par for Leysa's utilitarian style. Alina has a mouthful of porridge when Leysa appears from wherever she'd run off to after finishing cooking and drops a bag on the table in between her and Petro. 

"What are we being presented with? Tell me it's an early birthday present for me, go on." Petro bites into his toast cheekily as he finishes and Leysa stares at him until he acknowledges that wasn’t even a particularly good attempt at a joke.

"It's more paint. There’s more than one village near here that could use protecting, and Alina only got to our closest neighbour yesterday, didn't you?"

Alina can only nod with her mouth full, feeling slightly wounded. Leysa pushes the bag towards her, knocking the bowl and splashing porridge onto the table top. "I want you to go out to the next nearest village and get them prepared.”

Swallowing, Alina looks up at her. "Can I take one of the cars? Or at least one of the horses? It's a good five miles away.”

"No. Five miles isn't much - you can walk it."

Alina shoots Petro a look behind the bag, and he raises his eyebrows in a mocking expression. She supposes she deserves it after laughing at him for having to walk yesterday. 

The last of her porridge disappears down her gullet and she stands, grabbing the bag with more force than needed and knocking his arm out from under his chin spitefully. He scowls at her as she laughs, though they both cut it short as Leysa continues staring at them blankly. "Sorry boss. I'll be back as soon as I can then, okay? Late afternoon if I don't stress myself."

Once she's out of the door she doubles around the back to one of the kennels. A rack of thick leashes with harnesses hangs from the wall, each with a number to correspond to one of the wide dog houses.  
Leash three slips off the hook and into her hand with one tug, and behind the grate a bouncy Carpathian shepherd barks happily. Letting him out, Alina scratches his ears as she clips him into his harness.  
“Hey Strilka. I’ve got a long walk today, and I don’t want to go alone, so you’re coming with me. I’ll cut you some of my steak tonight.”  
He barks in response to her voice and strains at the leash, eager to get going. Laughing, she follows him, jogging to keep up with him.  
She doesn’t give the complex another look as she leaves.  
____  


Requests to protect outbuildings keeps Alina away for longer than she’d wanted, and by the time she gets back home it’s early evening. Strilka has degraded from manic bouncing to standard dog bouncing, which is still a little too active for her, and she’s spent the last mile or so visualising her dinner in great detail.  


Greeted by the familiar gates, once they’re both inside and the place is closed she lets the dog off the leash to trot beside her instead. All of the animals are well trained, and keeping to heel is one of the first things the pups get taught. She’d taught this one herself.  


That’s why it takes her by surprise when he races off, tearing away from her at breakneck speed. It stops her in her tracks for a moment before she shrugs it off, but it lingers as she heads for the mess hall. The leftovers of her steak will get him running back fast enough to put him away anyway.  


Leysa is already sat eating when she enters, chewing thoughtfully on the last bit of meat from her plate as she reads a book. Alina recognises the title as she takes her place at the table, pulling the plate left out for her over.  


“I was looking for that in the library! Guess I know where it got to now.”  


“I just started it, but I’m in no rush to read it. Here-“ The other woman closes it over and hands it to her. “You can have it first. Just go and tell Petro his food is getting cold. He said he’d only be gone a minute, but he’s probably discovered a cable that needs untangling or something.”  


Alina groans half-heartedly but nods a thank you. With no pockets big enough the book gets moved to her bag, clattering against the empty paint cans.  


Strilka is hovering outside the door to the communications room, pawing at the door. Alina gives him a reassuring pat as she types her code in. The dog pushes past her to get inside and whines loudly at Petro’s side, nuzzling his hand as if looking for treats.  


Unsurprising, she thinks, considering he spoils them rotten. She doesn’t announce her presence as she approaches his chair, just grins to herself. In one movement she grabs the back of it and spins him round to face her, ready to laugh at his expression.  


He doesn’t fall out of the chair like she expected, though that may have something to do with the piece of metal jammed through his torso and into the cushion, holding him in place like a grotesque butterfly pin.  


It’s only when she clamps her hand over her mouth and tastes blood on her palm she manages to take in what’s happening.  


She sounds nothing like a hunter when she screams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Few notes on Slavic folklore for you: 
> 
> Semik is usually the seventh week after Easter, sometimes the eighth, and is an ancient agricultural festival also tied into the cult of the dead. Funeral rites are given to those who never got proper burials, and vows of lifelong friendship could be taken. It was practised until recently. (It's English equivalent is Whitsuntide.)  
> When the angels fell (based on a bit of deductive guesswork and the fact 'a few weeks later' is early June) it was most likely the middle of Semik, margin for error accepted. 
> 
> One of the problems at Semik would be the Rusalki, which are water spirits. (They often came from unclean deaths, making them a type of ghost, though they also fit some kind of cross between a nymph and a mermaid). They try and entice passer-by (usually men) into the river to drown them.  
> During that particular week, they would be able to be out during the day as well as at night, and could go farther from the river without having to worry about drying out.


	3. Chapter 3

Alina cuts her scream short.  
  
Shock freezes her limbs in place and as much as she wills it she can’t move. Petro’s body stares at her with empty eyes, and it feels like an accusation.  
  
Strilka whines at her feet and it brings her crashing down to reality. The blood on the chair is still wet and fresh, stark red where it’s soaked into his shirt. Training kicks in, and with an already bloody hand she reaches for his throat, hoping for even the weakest flutter of a pulse.  
  
There’s no trace of anything, though the flesh is still warm, almost hot, and as her fingers press into his neck his head lolls to the side. The little things add up and her body tenses defensively on instinct.  
  
He’s been dead less than an hour.  
  
It’s funny how the human brain slips into protocol when startled with such ease. Some people break, but some find themselves in a moment of incredibly efficiency in what to do and how to continue, as long as they think they have procedure. While the natural state of mankind is chaos, we return to order in times of need.  
  
Not exempt from this, the first thing Alina does is grab a nearby piece of metal as a weapon. It won’t do much good if the attacker is, as she fears, the angel that’s crashed but it’s better than no weapon at all. The dog whines again and she makes a gesture to bring him to heel.  
  
Once she’s sure there’s nothing else in the room with her she allows herself to turn around and begin working towards the door. (Even if she thinks it is an angel, checking in case it’s something more easily concealed in the shadows won’t do her any harm.)  
  
The open land between the door and the mess hall looks clear, and logic dictates if it had been outside it would have attacked her already, when she was off guard, but she checks twice anyway. With nothing in sight she sprints across the grass, the dog tight to her heels.  
  
The door to the mess hall slams shut behind her, but with her usual control Leysa doesn’t jump. “What did he say that made you run scared?”  
  
It takes Alina a moment to get the words out. “Petro is dead. Impaled with great strength. It’s inside the compound.”  
  
Leysa is on her feet instantly, an oiled machine kicking into action.

"How long?"  
  
"I'd guess less than an hour for definite, but the-" Alina inhales and exhales to stop any stutter in her words. "The blood is wet and warm. Half hour, twenty minutes at worst."

Suddenly she's so happy she is the subordinate here. Other hunters might have considered her above them, like a supervisor rather than more skilled, but here she has Leysa as a safety net and it's a comfort. Whatever decisions have to be made, she can follow them as orders without having to worry about the blood being on her hands. It's a little weak to think of it that way, but she figures she's allowed the occasional weakness sometimes. Everything has one.

Leysa seems to come to a decision and heads for the door. "We need to check the wards- I was sure I'd done them all. If there's one broken, they got in after I fixed them. If not..."

"They got back here before us." The thought makes her feel nauseous. That means they’d slept, feeling secure, while it had waited and watched. "If it can still fly it could've been here before I even left. Or gotten a body. "

"I'm going to check the wards.” The change makes Alina tilt her head in confusion. It was we a moment ago. Leysa's next words make it fall into place though, worry flickering across her face. "You need to check the villages. Find out if anyone has gone missing. If we can find out what they look like, we can spot them that much easier. Take one of the quads. Be as fast as you can. Pri-"

"Priests and devout followers first, I know.” Alina clicks her tongue nervously and hovers by the door instead of leaving. "I don't want to leave you here alone with it."

The older woman's face doesn't lighten, but she knows the concern is appreciated somewhere. "I'm not Petro, God rest him. I'm prepared, and I'm armed. He wasn’t ready for anything. I'll be fine. You're just as much at risk as I am."

It's oddly comforting, that thought. "I'll be back as soon as I can. I'm going to keep my radio on- you contact me Leysa. I don't care if you're a super-soldier or whatever- you contact me if it gets rough."

"Promise."

The quad bikes are in the barn by the south west gate of the property, and Alina' s glad it takes her past the kennels to get to it. Strilka is a good dog, and she doesn't want to risk finding him gutted on the grass. It's sentimentality she shouldn't be indulging, but she's had enough personal deaths today. It’s only when she tries to lock up the gate she realises the metal is still clutched in her bloody hands.  
  
She tries not to think about it, wiping it away like it belongs to some monster instead.

She shoots out of the gate like a bat out of hell, road speeding under the wheels of the vehicle. What's almost more worrying than someone missing is the thought of nobody missing.

From all they've heard, some angels are good at blending. For the sake of it she throws a brief prayer that she won't get stabbed in the back by an angry villager skywards to any gods wanting the attention. The ride isn't far, but her mind runs over worst cases anyway, unable to do anything else. It could, of course, be something other than an angel. A demon or a god using the sudden turmoil to do some damage without being suspect. She hopes it's not a god- they're enough trouble without angels running around too.

They usually leave her alone though, and the other hunters who make knight. Ivan had told her it was something to do with pacts and Baba Yaga again, but she's suspicious of the whole thing. Eventually pacts run out.

The first village is a bust, or an unlikely target. Everyone is present and correct, and everyone is acting normally.  
  
Alina isn’t sure if she’d rather it turned out to be someone she knows or not. She’s fond of the villagers, to be sure, but at least it means they’d have a visual on who they’re looking for. If the angel fell with a body, it could be anyone.  
  
The fields are a blur as she races past, animals and crops melting into what feels like an endless stream. Her next stop is further out, and she begins to feel the teeth of worry gnawing at her. The longer she’s away from Leysa, the worse it gets.  
  
She’d known her boss was calm, but to be that blank in the face of something with that much power is more than she’d suspected Leysa was capable of. She’d never forced the fear down, like herself, or covered it with bravado like Petro and so many other hunters did, but still. It was surprisingly cold.  
  
Maybe that’s what being a soldier is, she reasons. Viewing everything from the eyes of God.  
  
She doesn’t have time to think on it much more as she gets into the little village she’d visited only that morning. The paint on the walls is still drying.  
  
There hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary then, but of course she hadn’t been looking for it. People seem surprised to see her again so soon, but there must be something in her expression she can’t quite cover as she begins to ask about anyone missing or acting odd, because the energy of the place begins to turn nervous and scared.  
  
There’s nothing of note here either. It’s when she’s sitting on the bike, wondering if she should try the next village out or check on Leysa that things begin to take a turn for the worse.  
  
The woman who approaches her is young, with dark hair and eyes wet with held in tears. “I... I was in the garden when you knocked, and it’s only just now someone told me what you’re looking for.”  
  
Despite how it should be a horrible thing, a weight lifts in Alina’s chest. A result is a good thing for her, no matter how sad it is for someone else. “You have someone in mind?”  
“My brother. He usually goes out fishing for a few days, and sometimes stays longer than he means to, but he was due back yesterday.”  
  
The fact he was out by water during Semik makes her lose any sympathy she had for him- she’d warned all these people time and again. “Where?”  
  
“The bend in the river through the woods. There’s a clearing he camps in.” She chews her lip, but manages to keep the tears in still, resolve bearing the strain. “He’s such an idiot. I don’t know why you’re looking for people, but if you can save him, please do. He’s all I’ve got.”  
  
Alina nods. “Do you have a picture of him?”  
  
The woman evidentially came prepared and hands her a snapshot of a young man with the same dark hair and a broad smile. She tucks it inside her internal jacket pocket, trying to not let relief show on her face.  
  
The engine of the bike purrs under her, and while she rides out of the village on the road with ease, she knows she can’t take it into the forest. They can’t deal with the carpet of roots and lack of paths- that’s why she’d never bothered to bring one to chase after Leysa and Petro the first time.  
  
There’s a turn off to take her closer approaching rapidly, and she’s not surprised she doesn’t take it. If this man is the angel they’re looking for he’s not going to be by the river anyway, and if he’s not (which is always a possibility), well… Leysa comes first.  
  
The sun is beginning to dip below the sky now, casting the long shadows around her. Dusk. The time of the Red Knight. Petro’s time.  
  
The thought takes her by surprise, and she feels the beginning of tears prick her eyes. She can’t let them fall- she knew this was an outcome when she started, and she’s too busy to mourn.  
  
The walls of Vorozhka appear in all their imposing sturdiness, and she knows why the outcome of one of the Knights dying never crossed her mind. They’d always seemed so safe. Out of the way of normal hunts for the most part, and when they were called in to deal with the big things there was always other hunters there to back them up. Nothing was supposed to happen in those walls.  
  
Other hunters felt it to- she’d heard Hanna saying she felt genuinely safe there.  
  
Oh fuck. Hanna.  
  
Alina hopes it’s in Leysa’s jurisdiction to let the next of kin know.  
  
She wouldn’t know where to start. Were Petro’s parents still alive? Did he have siblings? Cousins? He was the easiest to get along with out of the three of them- how many friends did he have that needed to be told?  
  
The next Red Knight would need to be picked too. Petro had never gotten a bunch of recruits to train, so there must be at least one other hunter alive who’d been in his batch but not picked. Someone to do his job.  
  
The thought of someone else in his chair feels wrong.  
  
She forces the thoughts from her mind as she parks up, not bothering to get it back inside the barn. The lights are on in the mess hall again, so logic dictates that’s where Leysa is. The gun at her hip slips into her hand in case it’s not, but once again, if it’s an angel, it’s not going to make much difference anyway.  
  
She slams the door open, hoping the loud noise will take whoever is in there by surprise if she needs the advantage. Once again, Leysa doesn’t jump.  
  
Alina puts her gun away and sits down across the table from her. “I have someone who fits. Camping near where the angel fell, due home yesterday.” She pulls the photograph from her jacket and tosses it on the table between them. “I didn’t see him when I was looking for you guys either.”  
  
Leysa examines her face carefully. “I checked the wards. They were all complete- they must have gotten in before I fixed them. They can’t get back in at least.”  
  
“What if they didn’t leave?” Alina pushes her hair behind her ears and justifies herself. “If I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back in I wouldn’t leave.”  
  
The other woman shakes her head. “I did a thorough sweep. The only people inside the walls are you and me.”  
  
Alina relaxes and lets the fight drain out of her. Able to collect her thoughts, it dawns on her what happens next. “We need to see to Petro.”  
  
Leysa nods solemnly. “Tradition states the higher Knight buries. The lower prepares the dead.”  
  
Part of her training had involved how to care for the dead, at least in the further out parts of the country where there was a want for the old traditions. Being a Knight wasn’t just being a hunter out here. It was being the people’s Babka too.  
  
With only the slightest unsteadiness, Alina gets to her feet. “The trembita is with everything else?”  
  
She takes the nod and leaves for one of the more important storage rooms. Inside, among the more valuable ingredients for spells or the more sensitive items, are the tools for the dead.  
  
When Ivan had died, she hadn’t been a Knight yet, and hadn’t had to do the work. Petro had done it, and it’s strange to think she’s going to be using them on him now.  
  
It’s still dusk, just, and it’s oddly appropriate, she thinks, as she opens the long box that houses the wooden horn. It’s seven or eight feet long, but light, and it takes little effort to take it outside. She looks down into the valley and takes a deep breath, knowing that blowing the horn will make it seem final.  
  
But it has to be done, and the long drawn out wail of the instrument echoes down the mountainside, calling out the death.  
That’s the easy part.  
  
By the time she has put the horn away and drawn the water she’ll need from the ancient well they use for little else, Leysa has cleaned the table in the middle of the comms room of everything, giving her space to work. She’s thankful for it.  
  
The first thing that has to be done is remove the metal from his chest. Armed with gloves this time Alina avoids looking at his face as she braces him against the chair and tugs. It comes free with a sickening sound, and some more blood begins to sluggishly ooze out of the wound, following gravity.  
  
She’s already shed her jacket and jumper, and doesn’t have the will to care about the blood going into her t-shirt as she lifts him onto the table. He’s stiff, but not immovable yet. Her mind is blank as she starts to pull his shirt off and clean his skin, trying to fall into the rhythm she has when she does this with strangers.  
  
The gash where the metal tore through is large, and she knows the stitches will be ugly, but the needle and thick thread close the hole, slowly but surely. His tattoo is marred beyond recognition, but the wound is closed. By the time she’s done that and cleaned, the water in the bucket at her feet is red.  
  
She doesn’t think as she goes to collect more in another container, only half finished.  
  
It’s not until she’s done with washing the body down she notices Leysa had left fresh clothes for him too. It’s his best shirt that he wore once in a blue moon, and for a second Alina lets her vacancy lift to smile.  
  
The box from the storage room has more than one silk belt inside, and she picks the bright green instead of the red. She’s had enough of seeing him crossed with red.  
It slips over his shirt, holding the bag of nail clippings inside it in place. His hiking boots are there too, and she ties them as tightly as she can.  
  
Her hand pauses over the sweet basil in the box, and she rushes to force her impartiality back in. He wasn’t married, and she has to think of that as a fact, not Hanna’s face. A moment and a few deep breaths and she manages to slip it into his shirt pocket without thinking of the wedding that won’t happen.  
  
The coins on his eyes and on his tongue are easier, and tying the knots on the ropes holding his arms to his sides and his legs together keeps her mind away from who she’s doing it to.  
  
It’s easier to look at him now, clean and whole, and she fixes his hair absentmindedly as she lights a candle by his head. A prayer she doesn’t even recognise the language of is the last thing she adds, placing it on his forehead before collapsing into a spare chair.  
  
The buckets of used water are by the door for Leysa to collect and bottle. Grotesque, but useful in so many spells that it’s worth keeping. She knows the ropes around him will be put away for the same reason when he’s buried too.  
  
Two days.  
  
She has to watch over him for two days.  
  
Unable to hold onto her mask any more, and tired beyond all belief, Alina puts her head in her hands.  
  
Quietly and gently, she begins to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The funeral customs done here are a version of traditional Ukrainian folk customs. (Taken mostly from The Structure and Function of Funeral Rituals and Customs in Ukraine by Natalia Havryl’iuk)
> 
> The belt, the basil, and the coins are all typical of this. The hiking boots were because it's expected the dead have a long way to walk when they reach the afterlife, and instead of the traditional soft slippers hunters prefer walking boots. The water used to wash a body is reputed to have power in spells, as is the rope used to bind the body before burial. 
> 
> See previous chapter for notes on Semik.


End file.
